Funny, this is almost the same article with the same statistics that DetNews.com posted back in April. Wonder how bad it REALLY is, now that HopeAndChange has set in?
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091014/METRO01/910140370/Insurers-declare-war-on-arsons-in-Detroit
Arson cases soar
Stopping the arson will be no easy task.
There were 6,486 arsons investigated by the Detroit Fire Department’s Arson Squad in 2008. That is a 27.8 percent increase over the squad’s 5,074 cases in 2004, said Gery Victor, the squad’s chief. In addition, arson-related insurance fraud in Detroit is up roughly 40 percent from 2005 to 2008, he said.
There were about 101,000 vacant housing units in Detroit in 2008, more than double the number in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
After the Sunday arson spike, officials said they are particularly concerned about Angels’ and Halloween nights, which had high levels of arsons in the 1980s. City officials are already requesting patrol volunteers.
In 1984, fires on the day before Halloween, for years known as Devil’s Night, peaked when 810 fires were set within a three-day period.
As the city has been plagued with foreclosures and an unemployment rate above 28 percent, fire officials have said that some despairing owners are risking prison to get out of debt, and vacant, foreclosed homes are being torched.